I of course had to see the great wall before leaving China
and this was my chance (staying with my buddy in Beijing).
I was advised to go to some re-made part of the wall bla bla
bla. I read on the internet there was a place called the Wild
Wall where you could get into for free and hike on the old
wall (not rebuilt). So I went there instead. This part of
the wall was awesome. It was dangerous in many parts but the
best thing of all were these chinese men who set up camp in
the towers and try to charge you a toll to cross. Haha like
they built the wall or something.
I come to this one tower and another group is having a rough
time with this one toll booth guy because he is throwing rocks
at them for not paying. He had a good setup. If he didn't
pay, he wouldn't let people use his ladder to get past a certain
part. I just took off and ran through the people, lunging
for the place where you need a ladder. I hoisted myself up
and our little asian toll booth guy was all peeved because
I got up without his ladder. I scurried away as he threw a
couple rocks my direction. Another time I pretended to get
out my wallet and then just took off down the path. This time
it was a lady trying to make some money. She ran after me
screaming for a bit but I finally got far enough away and
she turned back. I met up with this guy from England about
that time. He was walking back so he could get home before
dark. I told him I had a tent and if he was interested, he
could stay in it with me. He thought that was a great idea
so we kept walking until sunset.
When it got dark, we set up the tent and watched the sunset
over the great wall. It would have been better with a girl
but what can you do? That night the temperature dropped drastically.
We didn't get any sleep because we were too busy making fires.
I dosed off once or twice but woke up when I couldn't feel
my limbs anymore. After that night I was done with camping.
I packed up the tent and left it on the wall (Go use it if
you want). We kept walking along the wall until we ran out
of food and water. A couple of days later, I came back and
continued walking by myself until I came to a rebuilt section.
I checked that out for a bit and then walked out through the
entrance toll booth!! Woohoo. I guess they can't keep you
off the whole wall. Although I wouldn't put it past them to
build a 15000 kilometer wall around the great wall and then
charge admission.